The ACME Animation Program

I have been a huge proponent for the old atelier style of learning craft with any art form. In the 17th century in Europe if you showed an aptitude towards a trade like painting, you were shipped off away from your family to live with your master at a young age to learn everything you could about that craft.

Animation lost the mentor/apprentice paradigm with the invention of CG. You do not see this relationship as part of the workforce today. These animators are being taught early, while still in high school by professionals and will be way ahead of the curve when they go to college.

My friend Lennie Graves is one of the teachers on this video (red shirt) and I think this is a really great way to mentor students online - check it out!

Which Animation Student Are You?

Which Animation Student Are You?

Fan Boy?
Know-It-All?
The Flirt?
I'm In It For The Money Guy?
Gaming Geek?
The Keener?

This is a really funny read, because it's all so true.

Oktapodi

The Wowsie Wow award this month
goes to Oktapodi.

There is definitely something in the water at the
Gobelins School of Animation in France.
Top notch look dev, motion, acting and story - LOVE IT!

Check out the making of...here

Future of Education and Monster's Inc. Director - Pete Doctor

WHO: * Graduating students from throughout the U.S., Eastern & Western Europe and Mexico, who attended a next generation, Web 2.0 school and are meeting in the physical world for the first time.

* Pete Docter, director, MONSTER’S INC.

* Award-winning animators from RATATOUILLE, TRANSFORMERS and SHREK, who work at San Francisco-area studios and teach at the school.

WHAT: The Future of Education: Graduation Ceremony for AnimationMentor.com

WHERE: Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco http://www.fortmason.org/directions/index.shtml

WHEN: Ceremony: Saturday, January 12, 2007 1:30 – 4:00 PM

(School Open House: Thursday, Jan. 10, 2007 3:00 – 5:00 PM, Berkeley, CA)

WHY: Online, higher education is on the rise & gaining academic credibility. The number of students attending post-secondary school on the Net ballooned 9.7 % in 2006, compared to 1.5% growth for traditional schools.

The first school of its kind, Animation Mentor is a cross between YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK and ART SCHOOL, (think TOY STORY U). It uses real-time, interactive classes; streaming rich media; personal weekly, online critiques; social networking; Internet drawing tools; and more to teach animation to students living in 56 countries. All the instructors are working pros at Pixar, ILM, PDI/DreamWorks and other top studios.

Hear Pete Docter’s inspirational address. Interview grads from around the world meeting each other for the first time. Meet the famous animators who taught them.

IMAGES: Stills and B-Roll of the school experience.

CONTACT: Rochelle Winters, Smoke & Mirrors
(Office) 213 250-4603; (Cell) 213 215-5020; smokemirrors@earthlink.net

Animation Mentor Winer Reel

I just watched Animation Mentor's Winter Reel and as if outsourcing wasn't enough competition, these kids are getting really good!!! The understanding of mechanics of motion is a huge leap from what I see coming out of most schools.

In fact, I was asked to do a demo reel review with the seniors at Gnomon School of Visual Effects last night, by Pamela Kleibrink Thomson. She teaches the career development class there. There was a lot of potential there amongst the students, but many are trying to be generalists - to be more marketable - and their animation suffers because of it.

The beauty of Animation Mentor is that it concentrates only on animation. What the winter reel from AM communicates to me is the understanding of weight and how things move, reversals in the body as it reacts to its own inertia and just really fluid pretty movement to watch. What is missing is the fusion of character into the tests...that little extra seasoning that makes them stand out from one another, over all. Of course, they aren't showing the animated shorts in their entirety at the end and maybe that is where that stuff really comes into play for the students showing their full understanding of infusing a persona into the character...however...


In my opinion, the best work on this reel seems to be coming from Spain. By best I mean tests that communicate the ability to really get inside the character and know what the full intent that character has for the scene and communicating that simply and clearly without trite and cliche poses and over used snappy posing just for the sake of it. One of the tests that did that for me is by Kristina Krebs from Barcelona. All of the poses and timing are really solid for me but especially the pose and timing when he says poor little rabbit just made me giggle.

Anyways, kudos to Animation Mentor and Bobby, Shawn and Carlos...they are changing the face of animation - one student at a time.

~Angie

Gobelins School - Pyrats Short

Below is a short film made by some students from the Gobelins School. The Gobelins School in France is known for their great animation department. Even though it's a public institution, it is very difficult to be accepted into this school. Gobelins students make short films as a group (usually 4 to 6 artists). They also keep the length of their films to 1 or 2 minutes.

This is smart because they are able to focus on what they do best as a group, the structure is closer to what their role will be as an animator in the real world, and the length of the short ensures they do not bite off more than they can chew. Another great thing about this school is all students have to take two years of traditional animation classes as a foundation. We placed our favorite short from this year's Annecy festival submissions from Gobelins. The reason we dig this short so much is it has an actual STORY! Not a string of gags. The story is so good, we want to see more! Also the animation is great, watch it frame by frame to see the blur frame poses! We need more of this in CG!

Also, there is a chick pirate and I LOVE that!

Pyrats - Short Film

Glen Keane Podcast

Angie here, I sat here this afternoon folding laundry, while listening to the Glen Keane Podcast Part Two on Animation Podcast and I caught myself nodding over and over again. Part One is interesting, but Part Two really gets to the heart of things. Glen talks about his experience mentoring under the greats at Disney and how welcoming those people were. He talks about how sometimes he would just leave the studio when he would get stuck and go to the library for inspiration. Finally, one of the best points he brings up is in reference to his film Rapunzel. He speaks on his direction with this CG animated film as "being informed by hand drawn principles."

All of these points were what had me nodding my head. Our book Thinking Animation is written to do just this! Our book helps the 2D animator understand how to translate what they know about hand drawn animation into using the tools for CG and shows CG animators how to apply traditional principles to their animations using the machine. We even have a chapter called the "Thursday Animator" that deals with exactly what he describes when he gets animator's block on a shot. Booo-yahhh!

New Animation School!

Angie here! This school is revolutionary...And so needed!
Both Mike and Wayne are trained traditional animators who have worked in CG. They have observed the lack of mentors within the CG animation industry and 1on1animation.com is here to help. AND!!! They have summer workshops for as low as 37$!!!

You must check it out...These guys know what they are doing. And the beautiful part is, you get one on one attention...in person. That is the whole point!! One on one mentoring from someone who has been animating for over 20 years! If I had this kind of opportunity when I started out, I would have nabbed it in a second. I will be taking classes this Summer myself...Summer tends to be slow for work in film and you can always learn something new!

The things you learn by animating frame by frame with a pencil, will raise the bar on your animation with a computer. You don't have to be a great draftsman, just try a class. These are the most patient and giving guys I know. Do it today! You can't until you say YOU CAN!

p.s. oh yeah and Mike Polvani and his wife Cathlin are contributors to the book too!